Beatty and Weber (2006) showed that managers tend to misuse their discretionary freedom on how to account for acquired goodwill. This would imply that to improve the quality of financial statements management's discretion in that matter should be reduced.
However, Wyatt (2005) came to a complete different conclusion in her paper when she looked into a similar matter: the management's discretion selecting to record or not to record identifiable intangible assets.
Does greater discretion in how to account for intangible non-current assets result in better quality in financial reporting?